Pandora's Box. So named for the witch it once housed. Originally a creation of Light Magic, made by none other than Pandora's sister, it was meant to house the evil witch until they could find a way to bind her magic. But Pandora's sister had made a mistake in casting the spells placed on the box. Instead of trapping Pandora, it had trapped her and absorbed her Dark Magic, giving the thing a mind of its own and a craving for the darker side of magic. These days it could be used to trap almost any dark foe desired but only one at a time. It wasn't an object that he'd ever sought out actively for he knew it wasn't entirely necessary for the curse that was coming, but he did want it. He wanted it for the same reason he'd wanted Beowulf's sword so long ago. If magic like that had to exist, he'd rather it be in his hands than anyone else's. A box like Pandora's would need special protection being so close to him, just like the urn the Queen of Arendelle was currently housed in, but he could make sure that the proper precautions were taken.

It took only a single wave of his hand to summon the magic that he felt behind the door into his tower, he'd explore what he'd found later and confirm whether or not it was what he thought it was. He had more pressing matters to attend to.

"Well, well, well," he announced, applauding slowly and feeling guilty for every clap. When she looked up at him, it was apparent that she felt awful about what had happened. She was unhappy and he could easily see why, but it was for those very reasons that he felt as though he could have turned night into day! He couldn't be sure about what transpired here in the hours he was away, but no matter what it was, she obviously hadn't needed him to help her. She'd kicked her "friend" out all on her own. And what she'd said to him with the door between them, how she'd defended him…he felt so much prouder than he'd ever known he could feel. If he allowed himself to take this as seriously as the situation demanded, he might just cry, or worse…he might truly sweep her up into his arms as he'd wanted to earlier and work harder than he ever had to make her tears disappear.

"What an opportune time for me to return home. I had the chance to see some of what transpired with your 'friend.'"

"Rumple…" she swallowed and took a deep breath before pushing herself back up on her feet. For a moment, he almost hoped that she'd be unsteady and present him with an opportunity to reach forward and help her, but she did just fine on her own. Pity. "I'm sorry. I didn't…"

"That's quite all right, dearie," he assured her, summoning the magic he'd sent up into the tower into his hand again. Pandora's Box, that meant that this had indeed been a profitable experience for him, in more ways than one. "As it happens, I've had my eye on this little trinket for some time. Never was able to get my hands on it…but now your compatriot has delivered it right to me."

He was proud, but suddenly she seemed frightened, her eyes widened and she immediately spun around to look at the door behind her as if noticing the silence for the first time. What she was afraid of seemed perfectly clear to him even before she spoke.

"What about Samuel?" she asked quietly, looking at the box in his hands. "What will you do to him?"

"Don't worry, dearie," he dismissed. "I won't kill him. I promised you and wouldn't and I am a man of my word. I'm merely sending him somewhere…a bit less comfortable."

With a snap of his fingers, he sent Samuel to a lovely little swamp he knew of in the middle of Regina's Kingdom. Silence greeted the pair of them as soon as the boy was gone. His mind registered that there were only two people once more on the castle ground. The box was empty. Once again it was just him and Belle. As he always did lately, he felt like he had a million things to say to her. Where to begin was always the trouble.

"I suppose I should be grateful that you stopped him from relegating me to this terrible fate," he muttered, tapping the side of the box with his finger all the while wishing that he'd hear her use his name, not his full name, but merely his nickname again. "Rumple". Only a few people knew him well enough to use it. She'd used it before but only a handful of times and each time it made him feel like he'd somehow taken a step closer to her. He enjoyed that feeling. "I don't imagine there's much room to stretch one's legs inside this box. I'm quite touched by what you did."

"I hate to disappoint you, but I didn't throw Samuel out just to save you," she whispered after a moment. She took a deep breath and held her head high. "I did it for the people of the Enchanted Forest."

He smiled. Of course she had. He couldn't see her logic in that, but he was sure it existed. The woman never did anything if it wasn't beneficial to a greater purpose. She would be quite the dealmaker.

"Oh?"

"I wanted so badly to believe Samuel's story, but something about it didn't make sense from the beginning. And when he wouldn't give me a proper answer about what he'd been through, I went through his things. I soon discovered it wasn't a coincidence that I found him in the marketplace. I was just a means to an end," she shrugged.

How she could sound so upset while looking so strong was trait most royalty had. He used to think that it was drilled into them from birth so that they could elicit sympathy while ruling in the darkest of times. But watching it on her, he knew it wasn't something she'd learned. Her pride, just as much as the hurt she felt, were genuine. How anyone could claim to be her friend and put her in such a position that she would feel what she felt he couldn't understand. Samuel was lucky that he was gone, that she'd asked him not to hurt him, it was the only thing keeping him from killing him now.

"Samuel had a map to this castle and a drawing of your Dark One Dagger…"

She spoke those words and glanced up at him, purposefully studied his gaze. It took everything within him to keep his demeanor calm. This was the first time the dagger had ever been mentioned around her, the first time that he even had an inkling she knew about it. If it weren't for his magic grounding him, he felt like he might have toppled over. If he was calm and cool, if he didn't show his shock, then perhaps she would think it was all a lie. But would it be any harm if she didn't?

"That's when I realized…he was a mercenary. He came here to seize your dagger so he could control you with it. He and his men intended to use you to plunder the Enchanted Forest. There was no way I could let that happen, so really, it all went much beyond your well-being," she finished pointing a finger at his chest, a finger that he could have let touch him if he leaned in just a bit more.

"I see…"

He should have been terrified. He should have been considering all that she knew and how to get it out of her head so that the information could be safe again so that she need not know, and no one would threaten their lives for it again. But all he could do was hear her words in his head over and over. It hadn't been entirely for his sake…but it had been a little. He wasn't sure exactly what Samuel, or his notes, told her about the dagger, but if she did know what it did, what it could do to him, then she had protected him in a very big way. "Touched" didn't even really begin to describe it.

Suddenly she gave another big sigh and took a step back. Her heart skipped beats erratically, but it wasn't because of their proximity, it was a symptom he recognized of being sleep deprived. She needed rest.

"I think that's enough excitement for one night. I'm off to bed."

She didn't wait for his response, just began to move off to the dungeons leaving him feel entirely grateful that she'd come to that conclusion on her own and he wouldn't need to seek her out to tuck a blanket over her when she passed out from exhaustion.

"But first, one question…" she muttered before she'd gotten too far. There was a mischievous smile on her face that complimented her drowsy eyes impossibly well. "After everything that's happened tonight, do you finally trust me?"

It wasn't easy to catch him off guard, it wasn't easy for someone to ask him a question to which he couldn't readily think up some answer that would do in a pinch. However, catching him off guard seemed to be Belle's special talent. He could hear the remark in the back of his head, the words reverberated through his skull with the noise of hundreds of Dark One's screaming it at him, begging him to tell her that he didn't trust anyone. But he couldn't seem to get the command to speak past his brain.

"Never mind," she muttered, finally a blush blooming nearly as bright as her playful smile grew on her cheeks and chest. "I already know the answer…good-night, Rumpelstiltskin."

Did she? Did she really know the answer? He did, and that was the trouble. He did trust her. After all these months, after tonight's encounter, he had to admit that she might have been the first person that he truly trusted since his son. But this particular incident, assuring as it was, was also unfortunate for her. Because while he did trust her, it was that same trust that opened up the door for things like this to happen, for people to take advantage of her. This was the second time that someone had attempted to use her to get to him, she'd been lucky that she hadn't been killed both times, but she might not be a third time. He trusted her and that was exactly why he had to do something that he dreaded. He couldn't risk her.

"Belle!" he called before she could get much further. She stopped and turned to him expectantly, eyes battling the sleep her body needed. This seemed cruel, but it had to be done. Better now than later. He sent Pandora's Box safely back up into his tower and summoned her cloak into his hand. He hadn't removed the clasp yesterday. He should have.

"Whether I do trust you to come back from the marketplace or not, I clearly can't trust the rest of the world not to use your naivety to find their way into this castle and leave unharmed again."

He unhooked the clasp from her cloak then and used his magic to superheat the metal until it melted away into uselessness. Her face fell nearly as quickly as it did once she realized exactly what he'd just done.

"But-!"

"But!" he inserted quickly. He felt guilty. He felt probably about as terrible as she had when she'd chased her friend out of this castle. In truth, this wasn't her fault, she'd done nothing wrong, and that meant that he had a deep-seated desire to fix it for her. Looking at her tired face, thinking of her returning to her cell to sleep away her hard-won work, he could think of one thing that might help.

"If you'll follow me, I have something that might make up for it a bit; for the loss of your beloved village."

He didn't give her a chance to argue, though he did her let out a frustrated sigh as he led her out of the pantry, out of the kitchen , through the Great Hall and up the stairs to the second-floor room where her friend had recuperated all too well. He stood aside for her once they arrived and allowed her to venture inside and look about solemnly. Perhaps this room wasn't the best of his ideas, especially considering the history she now had with it, but when he remembered the way the sun had bathed it when he'd knocked on the door that morning, he couldn't imagine a more perfect spot for her.

"I don't understand," she stated, looking at him with confusion. "You want me to…clean it?"

"Obviously," he sighed, wishing that she could figure it out for herself so that he didn't have to say the words. If ever he wanted one of their silent conversations, this was a time. "And then I'd like you to stay in it."

"Excuse me?!" she exclaimed, surprise chasing her sleepless night from her eyes. She looked around the room, this way and that as if expecting to see it written somewhere. "You want me to…to stay here? Out of the dungeon? You're…you're giving me my own bedroom? A real bedroom?"

"Now, now, don't go and work yourself up over a practicality," he spat. "I'm nearly hoarse from screaming for you so often when you are reading in the library or down in the dungeons. This is far more suitable for you to attend to my needs and your chores in almost no time at all!"

"Thank you!" she breathed, looking around the room, her eyes glistening with unshed tears that he was rather grateful for. It was a lie, of course. All of it. But at least it allowed him to feel a little less like he was favoring her, even if what came to mind when he thought about his needs was less than chivalrous. He hadn't thought about how that might have been a problem until then. Now he couldn't get it out of his mind. He'd traded one problem for another. He just couldn't win when it came to her.

"I…thank you."

"Oh, don't thank me, dearie," he responded, trying to give her a mischievous smile of his own. "The dungeon shall always be there!"

So, there you have it. How will I make Belle going to town canon but still have her be shocked that Rumple trusts her to go to town again in 1x12? This is how. Melt the clip, tell her that others can't be trusted, and that sort of takes care of the situation. Fun fact, I like how sometimes the characters sort of write themselves. This chapter is exactly as it appears in the Moments version and I remember when I wrote it being shocked that Rumple gave her a room at the end, so much so I wondered if it would be fine when approaching it from this side of things. Turns out it's practically written itself and is pretty okay! With Rumple's development, I feel like it fits here really well. I hope you'll agree.

Thank you Alarda and Grace5231973 for your reviews on the last chapter. I appreciate that you enjoyed it. We still have a couple of chapters that I would categorize as falling into Truth and Daggers. The next chapter is one of those that I didn't expect when I was writing Rumple's version. It's not in Belle's story, and so I never had it as part of the Chronicles, but I'm glad it's there. It does something with the jealousy that was developed and even if Belle isn't part of it directly we still get a really nice Rumbelle Moment out of it. Well...maybe not "nice", but...I'll let you be the judge! Let's continue. Peace and Happy Reading!